Henry Augustus Sims

SIMS, Henry Augustus, architect, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 22 Dec., 1832; d. there, 10 July, 1875. He was educated at the Philadelphia high-school, studied civil engineering, and followed that profession in Canada, Georgia, and Minnesota. Subsequently he studied architecture, and practised that art in Canada from 1860 till 1866, and afterward in Philadelphia till his death. He was long the secretary for foreign correspondence of the American institute of architects. He designed many city and country residences and, among other public buildings, the Columbia avenue and 2d Presbyterian churches in Philadelphia, the chapel at Mercersburg, Pa., the court-house at Hagerstown, Md., and the almshouse of Montgomery county, Pa. His brother, Clifford Stanley, author, b. in Dauphin county, Pa., 17 Feb., 1839, was educated at the academy of the Protestant Episcopal church in Philadelphia, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1860, but never practised. He served as acting assistant paymaster in the U.S. navy in 1863, and was chosen lieutenant-colonel of the 4th Arkansas infantry in 1864, but was taken prisoner before he could be mustered in. He was judge-advocate-general of Arkansas in 1864-'9, a delegate to the Arkansas constitutional convention in 1867-'8, a commissioner to digest the statutes of Arkansas in 1868, and a representative in the legislature in 1868-'9. For the next nine years he was U.S. consul for the district of Prescott, Canada. Mr. Sims has published "The Origin and Signification of Scottish Surnames, with a Vocabulary of Christian Names" (Albany, 1862); "The Institution of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey" (1866); and an edition of William Noye's "Maxims of the Laws of England," with a memoir of the author (1870). Another brother, James Peacock, architect, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 15 Nov., 1849; d. there, 20 May, 1882, was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1868, and studied architecture with his brother Henry. He designed, besides many private residences, the building of the Royal insurance company, Christ church and Holy Trinity memorial chapels, Philadelphia, and Christ church in Germantown.

Source: Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, vol. 5. James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, eds., New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1888, p. 540.

Submitted by Nancy.